This Week In Scum

Actual Scum, For The Record

A wide swath of 'em!

1) I don't know if you watch Keith Olbermann's ESPN highlight show, or if you favor WFAN in New York's odd attacks against him as an odd kind of allegory to the Jonathan Martin situation... but, um, there's a basic rule of thumb when you are trying to pick a battle of wits. Don't fight out of your weight class. And that's all I'll say about that, because honestly, media fights are only slightly more interesting than blogger fights.

2) Richie Incognito was, we are now led to believe, part of the Miami leadership council. That's fun, right? Also, regardless of anything else you might think about the culpability of Miami GM Jeff Ireland, or how this kind of thing clearly happens everywhere (why else, really, are so many men making the unspeakable historical mistake of siding with the sociopath)... um, well, if you are committed to Rough N Tuff folks like Incognito, why did you draft an educated kid from a stable family and a Stanford grad to boot?

There's basically no way to spin this story in a way that anyone in Miami management should keep their job, and if they do, the owner for his team. Which leads me to...

3) Seriously, Roger Goodell -- you are going to prevent kickoff returns for risk of concussion, sentence the Saints to a year of can't win for a practice that every damn NFL team did not very long ago, and you aren't going to come down like a bag of hammers on the Miami Inmates?

The simple fact of the matter is that professional football -- violence with athletic beauty, strategy with savagery, potentially life-changing injuries at any moment, punctuated by committee meeting -- is the life blood of America. They cracked the code; it's what we want to see. Nerd nit gambling, aka fantasy sports and point spreads, just made things even more inescapable. It doesn't matter how random the events, or how often your league is going to be won by some Bill Volek to Drew Bennett hiccup of utter ridiculousness. It doesn't matter who will be in the Super Bowl, or how many Turnover Gods they had to fellate to get there. You're going to watch.

Unless, of course, the people involve turn your stomach, and make you embarrassed to patronize the product. Or for parents to stop allowing their athletically gifted kids to play the game (Why not kick a soccer ball or shoot baskets, son? No concussions or Richie Incognitos!), because they don't want them to grow up with people who live their lives as if they are trying to be King Bitch in Cell Block Dolphin. Or for people who don't want to put money into the pockets of the inmates of Cell Block Dolphin...